For many years, it has been customary to harvest forage crops, such as various kinds of hay and leaf-type forage plants by mowing the same in a field, letting them lie for several days to dry, forming the cut and at least partially dryed crop into windrows, and passing a hay-baling machine over and along such windrows to form the crop into rectangular bales which are secured by passing one or more tying strands around the bale. The bales then are picked up by various means and are taken to a barn or similar building in which piles of such bales are stored until used. In recent years, it has been found that if hay and similar forage crops are formed into a large, compact roll by various types of machines, the cylindrical formation of the roll tends to provide self-shedding of rain and other inclement weather substances if the roll is left lying in a field or feed lot where cattle and other herbivorous animals may feed upon it, without requiring the roll to be taken to a storage shed.
Large rolls of forage crops of the type described frequently are of the order of 4 or 5 feet in diameter and 6 or 8 feet long. Rolls of this size may weigh as much as over a ton. If they are to be moved, following the formation thereof, special types of equipment must be used. The present invention is concerned with the formation of compact rolls of forage material, such as hay, and the details thereof are set forth hereinafter.
Forming compact, large rolls of hay has engaged the attention of various inventors heretofore. Several different principles have been utilized in the inventions thus produced. One type forms a roll or coil of hay and the like by initiating the formation of such roll by suitable mechanism and continue to roll a swath or windrow of the hay while supported upon the ground. Examples of such mechanisms are shown in prior U.S. Pat. No. 3,110,145, to Avery, dated Nov. 12, 1963. Another such machine comprises the subject matter of U.S. Pat. No. 3,650,100, to Swan, dated Mar. 21, 1972. One of the principle difficulties resulting from this method of forming rolls of hay is that a certain amount of the hay remains upon the field without being included in the roll of hay, such as the fines. Further, dirt, clods of earth, stones and the like also can be picked up by the roll and this is undesirable under certain circumstances.
A second principle method of forming rolls of the type referred to comprises a machine in which a swath or windrow of the crop is picked up from the field and directed onto a supporting conveyor or the like while the same is formed into a coil or roll of the forage crop and is out of contact with the ground, thus resulting in the formation of a cleaner type of roll or coil of hay, as well as the same including most if not all of the fines of the crop, thus minimizing waste. One example of a prior machine for forming a coil or roll of hay is illustrated in U.S. Pat. No. 3,665,690, to Wenger, dated May 30, 1972. The particular design of the of the machine shown in said patent offers a certain amount of friction between the roll and the supporting frame of the machine, which is undesirable, and another undesirable feature is that the coil of hay is formed upon a core member rather than being a free-form of roll which has no core or mandrel. The foregoing objectionable features are obviated in the design of machine comprising the present invention and a substantial number of improvements in the art of forming large sizes of compact rolls of hay and other forage crops are provided in said machine, details of which are described hereinafter.
An even more recent U.S. Pat. No. 3,722,197 to Vermeer, issued Mar. 27, 1973, discloses a machine to form crop material into coiled rolls by employing a lower belt conveyor comprising a series of belts of textile-type material spaced transversely apart between opposite sides of the machine. An upper set of belts which also are spaced apart between opposite sides of the machine are supported for arrangement between an initial contracted configuration and an expanded operative position, the belts in the expanded position extending around the upper portion of the roll of crop material, and hydraulic means exert predetermined, fixed pressure upon said belts at all times while expanding. Therefore, such pressure does not increase as the size of the roll increases, but remains constant, whereby as the circumference of the roll increases, the unit pressure, areawise, exerted upon the roll decreases and results in less density in the outer portions of the final roll of product and it is in regard to this feature in particular that the present invention is an improvement as described hereinafter. Also, the belts of both kinds of said patent structure stretch during use and require tightening from time to time. Further, the belts run in the same directions as that in which the roll rotates and thus do not provide as much frictional engagement with the roll as other means would afford to prevent slippage between the belts and the roll.
The present invention comprises a portion of an entire roll-forming machine of which various sections and parts were invented by various inventors, including the inventor who developed the instant portion of the entire machine, and comprising the subject matter of additional related applications covering such features and assigned to the assignee of the present invention. In order to provide a complete understanding of the entire machine, or at least the major portion in which the present invention is included, a description of a substantial portion of the entire machine is set forth hereinafter but in which the present invention is described in particular.